With the current state of the world's economy, it's no wonder that companies are cutting budgets left, right and center. You still need your training videos, your health and safety training videos, your marketing videos - but you have way less to spend than you used to. What are some ways you can c=slash costs without slashing the quality of your finished video?

1. Plan, plan, plan!

You would be amazed how many clients waste our time and theirs on shoot day - and time is money! Planning properly before you film is crucial to keeping costs down. Let's say you are filming 5 2-minute marketing videos. If you don't script and plan properly, it can take an entire day to get one of those videos right. But rehearsing beforehand and using a teleprompter can make it possible to film all five videos in a single morning, possibly getting you that half-day rate, too!

2. Use your staff as actors

One of the biggest money-wasters is casting. Of course, if you have a script that requires actual acting and words spoken, it will probably be cheaper to hire a professional than to spend hours trying to get an amateur to say their lines correctly. But for physical acting, such as showing the correct steps to follow for a safety procedure - well, the best people to do that are your own staff, who hopefully already know the procedure and can simply do it for camera.

3. Check out in-house options for voice overs

These days, you can go with an AI voice over for some videos, although the technology is not quite there yet for anything that needs to look and sound professional. Voice-over artists can add a huge amount to your budget - and they can also be really worth that money! Voice-overs are not nearly as easy to get right as you might think, and no, your uncle with a nice voice is usually not going to sound good on your company corporate video! However, you can usually access some cheaper options like using the production company's in0house voice-over artists who have oodles of experience, are super cost-effective, and don't charge licensing fees.

4. Source your own locations

Using a paid-for location is obviously costly. For most company videos, you have everything you need right where you are. But please do let the production company check out your chosen location ahead of time. I can't tell you how many times we've had a client pick somewhere that looked great, but was impossible to film in for reasons like: being next to a truck parking lot, being in the middle of a thoroughfare, having an event being set up while we're trying to film!

Essentially, do your due diligence, and you can get a quality video for a lot less!